[ling3]

The problem with buying the NYT subscription is that you still get the ads. If not overtly, then they are still buried in the content in some sponsored form or another, because this is a large part of how the newspaper makes money. And the newspaper has other agendas too - political, commercial, etc. The Substack model, on the other hand (at least so far) lets you cut out most of the crap - the signal to noise ratio is just so much higher.

[kcartlidge]

> The problem with buying the NYT subscription is that you still get the ads

It is annoying when a paid subscription doesn't eliminate ads.

From their perspective if you bought a physical edition you'd still get the ads so there's no difference. And I guess by showing a willingness to pay and the presence of a disposable income, you may be proving yourself to be of more value to the advertisers - paying makes you more of a target not less (however unfairly).

[rchaud]

Newspapers have some level of editorial oversight, governance and fact-checking. Substack writers don't offer any of that. I understand that that's part of the appeal, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that Substack writers don't have their own agenda or biases.

[ling3]

They definitely do, but I think they are easier to spot. The problem with bigger publications it that they have overarching biases blended throughout, subtle ads and so on, rather than individual authors being overly opinionated. In the substack model, you probably know about the author's biases when you sign up.

[fakedang]

And yet Substack was featured on HN top for running ads in their email newsletters....